Education

Helping at-risk children read … before it’s too late

Learning basic reading skills could lift 171 million people out of poverty. — UNESCO

Some of the most exciting applications for the Gramarye platform may be in education.

According to a study by the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the National Center for Education Statistics reported in The Washington Post, learning to read by the end of third grade is crucial, because that’s the point at which children start using reading to learn other subjects.

Those who are proficient in reading by the end of third grade are much more likely to graduate from high school, and to be economically successful as adults. But about two-thirds of students in fourth grade don’t meet reading proficiency standards. And those numbers are much higher for students who come from low-income households.

We’ve written a white paper to show how Gramarye Books can help at-risk children learn to read, and improve their chances for success in school, and in life, dramatically. Please Click here to download it and take a look. We’d love to know what you think.

More Learning Applications

There was a famous University of Texas study that talked about how people learn. Basically:

People retain about 10 percent of what they read.

People retain about 20 percent of what the read and hear.

People retain 50 percent of what they read, see, and hear.

Present enhanced eBooks add video and audio, and that’s great, because it raises comprehension to up to 50 percent. But we can do better.

The same University of Texas study showed that people they remember more than 90 percent of what they read, see, hear and do.

Learning Better, Retaining More

Our “app within an app” game capability allows us to create interactive activities so that people learn by doing. Activities coupled with text and rich media increase retention and offer more bang for education dollars. We can also validate learning before “unlocking” the next chapters.

More, the reading speed algorithm can verify that a student is reading, and notify parents or teachers of the student’s progress. The social media component lets learners collaborate and form study groups.

Textbooks can be updated instantly, and publishers don’t loose sales to the used book market.

Gramarye Media Education Books can be used by textbook publishers and course designers in universities, high schools … all the way down to pre-k. It can also be used for training for businesses, software manufacturers, the military … really any institution that has complex information to communicate to an audience.

That’s Just the Beginning

Ultimately, we might provide students with an app for their tablets and smartphones. They will use that app to register for classes, and then ePic versions of all their textbooks will be automatically downloaded directly to their devices. The app becomes their library, their test mechanism, their tutor, their study group, even their ID!